Read at : Google Alert – desertification
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/301770
Facing threat to food supply, China invests in water conservation
After a Greenpeace report concluded that China’s food supply would be inadequate by 2030, the Chinese government has unveiled plans to invest $30 billion in 2011 on water conservation projects.
The Chinese government announced plans on Saturday to invest $30 billion in water conservancy projects in 2011, according to a report by the AFP news wire service. In 2010, China experienced widespread floods and droughts – and the net effect on the Chinese population was experienced in terms of severe inflationary pressure on basic food prices. Additionally, a recent report issued by Greenpeace concluded that China’s food supply “would be insufficient by 2030 and its overall food production could fall by 23 percent by 2050,” according to the AFP report. As the world’s most populous country – at over 1.3 billion people – China has struggled to feed its people without assistance from other food producing nations. China also faces challenges posed by desertification – as 20 percent of the nation’s land mass is currently desert, according to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The desertification question is considered China’s most important environmental concern. China’s ability or inability to feed itself has caught the attention of the United Nations. In a UN report on Chinese land degradation issued on Friday, it was noted that China has lost 20.2 million acres of arable land to urbanization, industrialization, forest replanting projects, and naturally occurring damage since 1997. According to the UN report, 37 percent of the nation’s total land mass is considered degraded.
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